Opened on May 11, the second ticket sales session to attend the Olympic Games (OG) events in the summer of 2024 has just ended and it resulted in “more than 1.9 million tickets sold”said Monday, May 22, Pierre Rabadan, sports assistant for the City of Paris.
“The demand is beyond expectations”he added, while he was the guest of the program “C dans l’air”, on France 5. After the sale of 3.25 million tickets at the end of the first phase (between mid-February and mid-March), the organizers of Paris 2024 had initially announced that they were offering 1.5 million places for this second phase.
Like the first sales session, the second aroused misunderstanding and strong criticism. Both on the impossibility of accessing certain seat prices, due to the drawing lots procedure, and – above all – on the price level of the seats to which it was possible to access.
“I hear this angersaid Mr. Rabadan. There is frustration, we can obviously understand it. The demand is much greater than the supply, we will not be able to satisfy everyone. There will always be people who will be frustrated. »
As the Minister of Sports and the Olympic and Paralympic Games, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, has been able to do on several occasions in recent days, Mr. Rabadan put forward two arguments to justify the very high price level of certain tickets: d first the fact that it is “because there are more expensive tickets we can make a cheaper ticket office”, with « 50 % » 10 million tickets « 50 euros or less » ; then the fact that ticketing represents a third of Paris 2024 revenue and that it “must balance” ce budget.
It is also this last element that was underlined by Senators Claude Kern (Centrist Union) and David Assouline (Socialist Party) in an initial communication on May 17, from the fact-finding mission on the Olympic Games and Paralympics for which they are the rapporteurs.
Recalling that the increase in ticket prices was one of the choices made, in December 2022, by Paris 2024 to preserve the balance of its budget, they consider that this “was probably unavoidable in order to fund the Games and keep the budget balanced”. However, they add: “We note with regret that the objective of having popular Games will not be achieved. »
” I think [que ces Jeux] will be popular”, ensures for his part Mr. Rabadan, who cites in particular the opening ceremony on the Seine “open as ever”, with some 400,000 people expected to be able to attend for free. A third session of ticket sales for the Olympic events will take place in the fall.
